“Earthquake. The members are completely shocked,” was the reaction of one House Republican lawmaker after Majority Leader Eric Cantor‘s out-of-the-blue loss to challenger Dave Brat Tuesday night. Trying to grasp the import of what happened, Republicans settled into two schools of thought.

The first was amazement at the sheer power of immigration as an issue in GOP contests. Many Republicans believe Cantor tried to play both sides of the street on the issue, on one side working on measures to ease the way for more young illegal immigrants to move into mainstream American society, and on the other assuring fellow Republicans that serious immigration reform would not happen this year.